Herod the Great was a piece of
work. He was born about 73 years before
Jesus, into a world where Rome was the super power, but not the only power, and
there were small regions of ethnic and religious populations. Herod was an astute and ruthless political
strategist. His family served as
Ethnarchs, or ruling agents installed by the Romans to implement political leadership over a common ethnic group or homogeneous
kingdom – in this case, the Jews. When
he was 28 years old, he was appointed Governor of Galilee, which is a region in
the north of modern-day Israel – and the lake found there is what scripture
refers to as the Sea of Galilee. And by
the time he died, as a result of civil unrest, riots, and political allegiances
and assassinations, the Romans had named him “the king of the Jews”, his rule
encompassed Jerusalem and all of Judea, and he had created his own dynasty by
naming his sons his successors.
Herod the Great is known as the
greatest builder in Jewish history. He spent lavish sums on his various
building projects and generous gifts to other kingdoms, including Rome. His
buildings were very large, ambitious projects. Herod was responsible for the
construction of the Temple Mount – the most sacred site in Jerusalem where all
Jews journeyed to in order to make sacrifices, and where Jesus would have
turned over the tables, calling it a ‘den of thieves’. A portion of this Temple
remains today in Jerusalem, and is known as the Western Wall, or Wailing Wall. If you’ve ever seen pictures of modern day
Israel, you have probably seen pictures of Orthodox Jewish men praying at this
wall.
While Herod's zeal for building
transformed Judea, his motives were not selfless. All these vast projects were aimed at gaining
the support of the Jews and improving his reputation as a leader. They likely brought employment and
opportunities for the people, and weren’t limited to the Jews - Herod also
built pagan cities because he wanted to appeal to the country’s substantial
pagan population as well. In
order to fund these expenses, Herod utilized a taxation system that weighed
heavily on the Judean people. Herod's taxes garnered a bad reputation – and yet
his constant concern for his reputation led him to make frequent, expensive
gifts, increasingly emptying the kingdom's coffers, and upsetting his Jewish
subjects. Despite the economic burden
placed by Herod's building projects and gifts, to be fair, there were some instances where
Herod took it upon himself to provide for his people during times of need, such
as severe famine.
We know all of this because of
the writings of a man named Josephus Flavius, a scholar of Roman and Jewish
descent who wrote two detailed books recounting this particular time in Roman
and Jewish history. I
am telling you this, selfishly and shamelessly, in the hopes to pique your
interest for a speaker on the history and contemporary reality of this part of
the world, who will be visiting us the first week of February. Jared Goldfarb, my friend and our Educator
during our Study Tour of Israel and Palestine where I learned most of this,
will be travelling and teaching in the US next month. I am excited to say that
he is able to fit in a visit here in Hastings and will offer several
opportunities for us to learn from his extensive historical, archeological,
religious and political knowledge of his part of the world.
Now back to Herod the Great. With great political cunning came great
paranoia as well. Herod was known as a
tyrant, and his harsh brutality was condemned by Jewish judges known as the
Sanhedrin. Herod's
despotic rule showed through his security measures aimed at suppressing the
contempt the Jews had towards him. Herod
used secret police to monitor and report the feelings of the general populace
towards him. He sought to prohibit protests, and had opponents removed by
force. He also had a
bodyguard of 2,000 soldiers.
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| The Walkway up the Masada Fortress |
Herod also built 5 fortresses, never more than a days’
travel from any of his residential cities, where he and his remaining family
could flee in the case of insurrection.
On my trip to Israel in 2013, we visited one of these fortresses, known
as Masada – a word that literally means ‘fortress’. Masada is a lone mountain in the desert,
overlooking the Dead Sea, one thousand feet high and very difficult to
ascend. It is a perfect place to hide
out and regroup, and was first used for this purpose 100 years earlier by a
different ruling group, the Hasmodeans. When Herod
the Great sold out the Hasmonean dynasty to Rome, he managed to secure the
fortress – only this fortress now had to be done in Herodian style. He
went to Masada and built an entire city upon the mountain, complete with two
palaces, agricultural space, Roman bath houses, and a system to
manipulate and collect water. Herod recognized that access to water
was the critical linchpin in a survival plan in the desert, and built a canal
directing the flow of water during the rainy season into a hollowed out space
half way up the mountain of Masada. This way, should he ever be attacked,
no one living on Masada would have to leave the mountain to get water. It
was then effectively impenetrable.
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| A model of the 2 palaces on Masada |
The construction of at least one of the
palaces, on the other hand, was unnecessary and thought to be for intimidation
and image, as it literally hung off the cliff of the mountain facing Jerusalem
and would denote the majestic power of it’s inhabitants. There’s no
explanation for why Herod needed a second palace, or a bathhouse for that
matter. But that’s the Herodian style – grand excess.
Herod’s family was not exempt
from his paranoia. In the course of his campaign to have power over Judea, he
married the niece of his enemy, who was also the granddaughter to the current
king, to cement his claim to the throne when he ultimately overthrew that enemy
– regardless of the fact he was already married and had a child. So this first family was banished, and
ultimately the second wife was tried and put to death, along with her
mother. He installed his 17 year old
brother in law as a high priest because he feared losing the title of king of
the Jews, and then had him drowned a year later at a party. He repeated this
pattern of paranoia years later, calling for the trial and execution of two of
his own sons and another brother in law.
Ceasar was rumored to have said that he’d rather be one of Herod’s pigs
than a member of his family.
I am also telling you this
because knowing all these characteristics of Herod the Great helps me with this
passage, known as the slaughter of Innocents.
As our scripture goes, Herod the Great ordered the slaughter of all
children under two years old in Bethlehem – although there is a bit of
discrepancy in time, since Herod is documented to have died 4 years before the
birth of Christ. Other than our Matthew
scripture, we have no historical record of this horrific episode – although
with Bethlehem being a small rural village with only several hundred
inhabitants and probably no more than 20 children of this age, so it’s possible
this number of victims didn’t garner the attention of historians of the time.
Many of my clergy friends
struggled this week with how to explain why God would warn one family and leave
up to 20 others to suffer indescribable grief.
Certainly they weren’t deserving of such pain. And certainly, this
sacrifice wasn’t God’s will. Rather for
me, knowing more about Herod, and his true character, makes it easier to see
the evils that our flawed humanity makes possible.
The life of Herod the Great,
for all his greatness, is completely dominated by fear. Herod’s actions result from a worldly
understanding of what is power and what is might, and his fear of losing power
or might controls his actions, overpowers his decisions and, by the end of his
life, even invades his sanity. And
ultimately that fear manifests in death 20 times over – for his family, for his
people, and for 20 innocents.
God tells us that there is
another way. God’s word from the angels
to the shepherds, and in dreams to Joseph and to the Wise Men, was always the
same: Do not Fear. I am with you. You are beloved. You must act as though you
are – with courage, and compassion, and wisdom.
Rather than a mentality of
fear, we can live into a mentality of abundance - abundant generosity, abundant
joy, abundant love. When we try to
control our lives based out of fear of what might happen, we can only ensure
more security, more suspicion, and more fear.
But when we focus on God instead of fear, and live into God’s kingdom of
generosity, joy, and love, we are able to multiply that force in the
world. And that is our work – the work
of God and the work of Christ – to trust in God and live into the abundance
that life provides, rather than focus on fear and worldly abundance. And in that, we give praise and thanks to God.
Amen and Amen.
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